North Shore students look to send their experiment to space

Steve Sadin / Pioneer Press

Former astronaut Don Thomas (left) and Michelle Lucas (right), the founder of Go for Launch, stand with members of Mile, the winning team from the four-day camp (from left) Leia Spaniak, Isabelle Bennie, Marina Polydoris and Evelyn Gehrig.

Former astronaut Don Thomas (left) and Michelle Lucas (right), the founder of Go for Launch, stand with members of Mile, the winning team from the four-day camp (from left) Leia Spaniak, Isabelle Bennie, Marina Polydoris and Evelyn Gehrig. (Steve Sadin / Pioneer Press)

The Northbrook resident came up short last year when her experiment was not chosen as the winning design during a four-day STEM space camp at Deerfield High School.

The winners saw their experiment launched into space for observation on the International Space Station.

Spaniak said she has been thinking about why the experiment her team designed during the Go for Launch program wasn’t chosen and decided to return this year. She formed a group with one girl from Deerfield and two girls from Highland Park.

“It’s all I could think of for a year,” said Spaniak, a Regina Dominican College Preparatory High School sophomore. “We got along real well from the start and worked so well together.”

The group, known as Mile, stood out from the other three teams and earned top honors at this year’s edition of Go for Launch held June 18-21 at Highland Park High School. The group designed an experiment they hope will help lead to a cure for Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s diseases.

Michelle Lucas, who created Go for Launch though her nonprofit organization Higher Orbits, said the camp uses space as a launching pad for engagement in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education.

Lucas said Mile’s experiment will now compete with ones created at other Go for Launch camps around the country with the overall winner being launched into space.

Now in its third year, the first two winning experiments were designed at Go for Launch programs Lucas held at Deerfield High School. The first went into space Aug. 14, 2017 and last year’s winner was launched June 29, according to Lucas.

Isabelle Bennie, a Caruso Middle School eighth grader from Deerfield, said she was sitting by Spaniak, Evelyn Gehrig, an Edgewood Middle School eighth grader from Highland Park, and Marina Polydoris, who is going into eighth grade at Northwood Junior High in Highland Park, on the first day of camp.

“Michelle told us to form teams,” Gehrig said. “We started talking and all got along real well.”

Mile’s project was a group effort. The four teammates talked about a number of possibilities, learning some were done before. Then Gehrig said Spaniak suggested studying the impact of weightlessness on Hydra, an immortal microorganism. She reasoned its immortality could shed light on ways to cure diseases like Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s.

“They can be killed but they will not die a natural death,” Spaniak said.

“We know it will have to be different,” Polydoris added referring to the impact of space on Hydra. “The fact they live forever is pretty cool.”

The four days was about more than designing an experiment. Lucas, who said she has trained astronauts, did the teaching along with Don Thomas.

Thomas was an astronaut from 1990 to 2007 who said he flew four missions on the space shuttle. He told students what Earth looked like from 200 miles away.

“We had 16 sunsets and 16 sunrises every day,” Thomas said. “You see our planet in a different way. It is incredibly fragile. I used to say I was from Ohio when people asked where I’m from. Now I say I’m from the planet Earth. You view yourself as much smaller.”

The participants, who were middle and high school students, got hands-on experience with what it may feel like getting ready to go into space.

“We got to try on a space suit,” Bennie said. “It was pretty cool, but it was really hot in there.”

Other experiments crafted by the participants were designed to test the impact of compost in space to determine the difficulty of growing food, the effect of worms in soil on growing plants in space and the impact of a caterpillar’s evolution in a weightless environment.

Thomas said all the ideas he saw are important and the thinking he saw from the students gives him hope for the future.

“What we are seeing from you is what we are going to need to go to Mars and you are the generation that’s going to do it,” Thomas said.

Steve Sadin / Pioneer Press

Former astronaut Don Thomas talks about his first of four missions aboard the Space Shuttle.

Former astronaut Don Thomas talks about his first of four missions aboard the Space Shuttle. (Steve Sadin / Pioneer Press)